1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a transport or conveyor mechanism for moving paper money currency one bill at a time from a supply stack of paper money bills to a delivery area. More particularly the invention relates to a transport mechanism which may move new or limp, used, old or a mixed combination of new or old paper money bills fed by a picker from a supply stack of bills in a currency dispenser to a customer at a delivery location.
More particularly, the invention involves a very low-cost transport mechanism which has a simplified construction that is extremely reliable in operation, comprising very few components without costly gear-driven pairs of conveyor rolls and which components include a flat longitudinally and laterally continuous endless rubber belt trained around a pair of spaced rolls one of which is driven to drive the belt in a desired direction, the belt having one flight engaged under pressure sandwiched in a space between a rigid flat coated metal pressure or backup plate and a rigid flat coated metal platform plate or platen, whereby paper money bills may be conveyed for long distances by the driven belt along the platform plate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art devices for conveying paper money bills from one point to another have included many types of construction, such as opposed roll conveyors, opposed double belt conveyors, and chain-pusher conveyors. All such conveyors have relatively complicated construction and operation features which are costly to manufacture and maintain.
One example of a double belt device is shown in Blaire et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,642 wherein opposed belts convey paper money from a stack between opposed corrugated belt formations, which impart corrugations or crinkles in the bills to provide bill separation.
Another example of double belt bill transport construction is shown in Hickey et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,937,453 wherein the complicated transport construction and arrangement is self-evident.
Still another device for handling sheets by transport means is shown in Allen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,778,051 wherein sheets are fed from a stack to the underside of a lower belt flight of an endless belt looped around a pair of spaced rolls and are held to the belt by a suction device while a sensor senses the sheet thickness to signal the presence of multiple sheets.
Another known conveyor construction for feeding paper money bills from the bottom of a stack of bills along a path that extends in three different directions to a delivery area is shown in Ransom et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,395 wherein a pair of narrow-spaced belts move against a series of spaced static plates having various irregular shapes. Laterally spaced corner rolls are located at the spaces between plates and the spaced narrow belts are guided around the corners by the spaced rolls which the belts contact directly. The spaced belts are intermittently pressed against the plates by spring-loaded idler rolls. The paper money bills thus conveyed are not engaged throughout the entire bill area at all times under pressure by the belts because of belt spacing, plate spacing, and spaced idler rolls. This can reult in irregular drive of the bills so that the bills may twist or skew or wrinkle.
Such known prior art transport devices are undesirable for one reason or another, particularly in automatic bank equipment cash dispensers, because of their complicated constructional characteristics or the expense involved in manufacture and maintenance thereof. Also jamming of bills may occur in the operation of some of the prior devices. Finally, old or used limp paper money presents special problems in cash dispensers.
There has been an unsatisfied want in the art of paper money bill conveyors and particularly those used in the automatic cash dispenser field for a transport mechanism which is simple in construction, which requires little if any maintenance, which is very reliable and effective in operation, which is capable of handling both new and old, limp, used paper money bills, which consists of very few simple components, which has a substantially lower cost than known prior devices, which minimizes jamming, and which readily conveys bills for long distances.